The Old Man of the Sea eBook

THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA

“What I want you to do,” said Mr. George
Wright, as he leaned towards the old sailor, “is
to be an uncle to me.”

“Aye, aye,” said the mystified Mr. Kemp,
pausing with a mug of beer midway to his lips.

“A rich uncle,” continued the young man,
lowering his voice to prevent any keen ears in the
next bar from acquiring useless knowledge. “An
uncle from New Zealand, who is going to leave me all
’is money.”

“It ain’t coming,” was the reply.
“You’ve only got to say you’ve got
it. Fact of the matter is, I’ve got my
eye on a young lady; there’s another chap after
’er too, and if she thought I’d got a rich
uncle it might make all the difference. She
knows I ’ad an uncle that went to New Zealand
and was never heard of since. That’s what
made me think of it.”

Mr. Kemp drank his beer in thoughtful silence.
“How can I be a rich uncle without any brass?”
he inquired at length.

“I should ’ave to lend you some—­a
little,” said Mr. Wright.

[Illustration: “What I want you to do,”
said Mr. George Wright, “is to be an uncle to
me.”]

The old man pondered. “I’ve had
money lent me before,” he said, candidly, “but
I can’t call to mind ever paying it back.
I always meant to, but that’s as far as it
got.”

“It don’t matter,” said the other.
“It’ll only be for a little while, and
then you’ll ’ave a letter calling you back
to New Zealand. See? And you’ll
go back, promising to come home in a year’s time,
after you’ve wound up your business, and leave
us all your money. See?”

Mr. Kemp scratched the back of his neck. “But
she’s sure to find it out in time,” he
objected.

“P’r’aps,” said Mr. Wright.
“And p’r’aps not. There’ll
be plenty of time for me to get married before she
does, and you could write back and say you had got
married yourself, or given your money to a hospital.”

He ordered some more beer for Mr. Kemp, and in a low
voice gave him as much of the family history as he
considered necessary.

“I’ve only known you for about ten days,”
he concluded, “but I’d sooner trust you
than people I’ve known for years.”

“I took a fancy to you the moment I set eyes
on you,” rejoined Mr. Kemp. “You’re
the living image of a young fellow that lent me five
pounds once, and was drowned afore my eyes the week
after. He ’ad a bit of a squint, and I
s’pose that’s how he came to fall overboard.”

He emptied his mug, and then, accompanied by Mr. Wright,
fetched his sea-chest from the boarding-house where
he was staying, and took it to the young man’s
lodgings. Fortunately for the latter’s
pocket the chest contained a good best suit and boots,
and the only expenses incurred were for a large, soft
felt hat and a gilded watch and chain. Dressed
in his best, with a bulging pocket-book in his breast-pocket,
he set out with Mr. Wright on the following evening
to make his first call.